Category Archives: Evan Longoria

Every once in a while, you hear a story about a ballplayer that just sounds true. It just fits. This one happens to be about the guy who we think will be the 2010 AL MVP.

I have to agree with the few posts on here. A girl friend and I did have the chance to meet him at the Wyvern in Punta Gorda where we were staying for vacation. It wasn’t the best experience. It was one night after a Rays game. My girlfriend, other guy friend, and I were at the bar on the roof of the hotel. Come to find out this is where he stayed during their training. We had heard of him but didn’t know really what he looked like or anything. We had heard people talking about some of the players at the bar. He approached both of us and asked if he could buy us a drink. We said of course. lol He asked if we knew who he was, we said no. After telling us he was Evan Longoria, we were a bit starstruck no lie. He didn’t really have too much to say and either did we. After a couple of rounds of drinks, he wanted us to join him in his room for “some fun”. We are not loose girls. We weren’t really into that. As soon as he realized we didn’t want to go back to his room, he made a comment like your loss not mine and totally changed the nice guy role into ignoring us. The only other thing we did notice throughout the night before hand was that he would do anything for the girls, but really did act like an asshole to our guy friend and said he couldn’t take a picture with him even though he did with other girls. It didn’t seem like he was very friendly and did act pretty arrogant during the short conversations we had. Take this for what it is. We really don’t care either way.

Yeah Longo. Get it.

All those with your Longoria hound-doggin’ stories, let loose in the comments!

Well the huge news coming out of the weekend is Dallas Braden becoming only the 19th pitcher in Major League Baseball history to throw a perfect game. He did it with his grandmother in the stands and with her telling Alex Rodriguez to stick it after the ballgame (A-Rod had just weeks ago dismissed Braden as a player whose 15 minutes of fame were about up).

One thing that makes it more special then it already was, Braden did it against a team in the Tampa Bay Rays that have a potent lineup, and it’s a team whom I think will win it all this year. A lot of people this morning are questioning Evan Longoria’s baseball etiquette for trying to bunt his way on to start out the 5th inning. While I didn’t see the play, this is absolutely fair game.

What are you going to do in a perfect game? Because you didn’t have any hits the first nine through the lineup and there’s been 9 up, 9 down, you can’t play the game the way you want? No way. You start honoring the fact of what is going on in the 7th inning, if at all. What Longoria did is good baseball. And I like it.

And every few years somehow, the Oakland A’s find a guy who emerges as a gem in the rough. It’s appearing that Dallas Braden is going to be the next in a long line of guys who either has a stellar or solid career in this league from basically emerging out of nowhere (see the Neyer post I linked above).

The A’s seem to do this as much as any small-market team in baseball. They find guys who the stock doesn’t look particularly high on, and somehow through performance on the field and literally zero hype; the guys carve themselves into really nice big league players, make Oakland scrappy for a few seasons, and then go to a bigger market team where they play a role during a pennant race but aren’t the same team ‘stars’ they were in Oakland.

Evan Longoria and the Rays showed that they are capable of winning another type of ballgame yesterday, as Zach Greinke struck out 8 hitters and stifled the Rays loaded lineup all afternoon long.

However, Greinke made one critical mistake. He let Evan Longoria, a guy we predicted would win the AL MVP this year get extended on one. That long ball accounted for the only run that would be scored in the ballgame. This kept the Rays from possibly getting swept at home, saved on a salvaged getaway day in a game by their young superstar.

The 2009 AL Cy Young Award winner, has now yielded just three runs over 22 innings in his last three starts, has a 2.27 ERA over his first six starts and is still without a win. The story here is not that Greinke could get 2010 Cy Young votes and still somehow go 0-18. It’s that people are missing out on the 2010 Rays.

There are a lot of old farts who aren’t coming out to see this 18-7 Rays team play. It’s just brutal on their part. These guys are the best team in baseball, and it’s honestly not even close. I think when it’s all said and done, they’ll be one of the best teams that we have seen in the past 20 years. There is no reason for this team to not sell out every ballgame.

I’m just pissed I don’t live within a state or two of Tampa or a weekend trip would be in order. That said, they’re making me wonder about MLB Extra Innings Package on satellite. I hate missing this team play on any given night.

Here’s a couple of links you might enjoy if you like Evan Longoria and the upstart Rays as much we do:

-Longoria hit his 1st home run of the season tonight; and it was a 473 foot blast that’s being called the third longest in Tropicana Field history. I watched this game for free on my iPhone and I have to say, this Rays team has serious talent and character. What a statement game this was to open up with. [Orioles Insider]

Good find yesterday via Tampabay.com. Basically, all things entailed; Evan Longoria is the most valuable player to own on a roster in MLB right now. The case is made for him taking into consideration a variety of factors: age, marketability, contract, and skills.

And here is what is said about his ability (keep in mind we love scout talk):

I asked an assortment of scouts, executives and former players if they could trade Longoria straight up for any player in the big leagues would they make the deal. Some of them pondered. Some of them equivocated. But, in the end, all of them said essentially the same thing:

No. No freakin’ way.

It’s not any one thing that makes Longoria more valuable than the rest. It is the combination of everything positive and the complete lack of anything negative.

You want a hitter? I suggested Longoria was among the top dozen hitters in the game. One scout corrected me. Top half-dozen hitters, he said. Another suggested Longoria was probably among the top five.

You want a fielder? He won the Gold Glove award last season at age 23. And he probably deserved it when he was 22. One scout said Longoria’s appeal is he could go 0-for-4 and still change a game with his glove.

Not to give away any spoilers, but the article is good because Longoria is about to explode in this game. You think that last year was a big year? He’s really about to make himself known as a household name in our opinion.

He’s got the lineup around him to provide not only shelter and protection, but there’s going to be a lot of guys on base in Tampa Bay this season for Longoria to drive in. There’s been a few times when we saw it coming with a player on the cusp of absolute superstardom. This reminds us of Manny Ramirez before the 1999 season. It’s going to be one of those kind of years for Longoria.

Just fix the fucking glitches that make it unplayable.“Longoria rose out of “a stable of guys” the team works with throughout the years in a role that is part consultation, part audition. Longoria also worked with 2K through a local GameStop tournament last year, helping his candidacy. Snyder wouldn’t name any of the other ballplayers in the consulting pool when I asked, but did say they were there because of their willingness to contribute. “We touch base with these guys throughout the season, picking their brains on baseball, asking them if they would be willing and able to jump in and help critique the game, and tell us what he’d like to see changed,” Snyder said. “When you’ve got an athlete willing to lend time and expertise, that’s a big deal.” [Kotaku.com]Rays Report with confirmation of Longoria being the MLB 2k10 cover boy.

The Colorado Rockies win streak is no more. Halted at 11 games after a 12-4 loss last night in Coors Field, and there’s no shame in it. The Rays have now won 6 games in a row and if they can continue this, they’re going to be the talk of all of baseball.

Last night the Rays set a team record with 11 extra-base hits. Highlighting that charge was a solo home run by Evan Longoria, his 15th of the season. If this guy gets on track not only will be in any conversation about the MVP award in the American League, but the Rays are going to be spoken for in the AL East; baseball’s best division. This is a team we could really get behind. They’re absolutely loaded. And they haven’t begun to put it all together yet. If they could double the winning streak they’ve already achieved, this will be the team that no one in the league wants to see on the schedule. They might already be that team in fact. Ben Zobrist, Jason Bartlett, Carlos Pena, B.J. Upton, Carl Crawford, plus all the pitching and the aforementioned Longoria? These guys are loaded. How can you not love Joe Maddon, just a little bit? The upstart Rays are just getting started we have a feeling, and the rest of the baseball world will feel the shock waves as a result.

ESPN the Magazine did a feature story on Evan Longoria, and if you missed it; there were some good quotes. The Mag picked an excellent time to do a story on this guy, because he’s raking everything thrown over the dish at the moment. Longoria is currently hitting at a .358 clip with 11 home runs and 44 RBI. He’s 23 years old and has been in the big leagues for just about a year. After what he did in the postseason last year he was already on the map. Now he’s got a chance to become one of the legendary players in the history of the game if he can continue driving in runs at this Ruthian pace.

There’s a lot to like about this kid, but the biggest is that he isn’t a primadonna in the slightest.“He impressed me from Day One,” says leftfielder Carl Crawford. “Somebody must’ve schooled him before he got up here, because he definitely carried himself well. If you’d watched him last year, you would’ve guessed that he’d been in the big leagues for 10 years. He fit right in. He doesn’t want to be the guy with a lot of talent everybody hates. It was refreshing to see someone with that kind of talent act that way.”The Rays have assembled what should be the envy of every organization in the league who is rebuilding. At the centerpiece of that core is their star young headliner Longoria. The possibilities for this player and this franchise are endless, and he’s going to end up getting numerous posts on this blog because he’s going to be good for a long, long time.

Evan Longoria is your American League rookie of the year. Geovany Soto took it for the National League. It marks the first such award for the Rays in their 11-year history; OF Delmon Young finished second in the voting in 2007. [The Heater]

Watching this you couldn’t ask for much more. We caught parts of the ballgame, missing the beginning and the ending. This was the game of the series that all great ALCS seem to have. One of those homecoming night, 5 hour 27 minute marathons that ends with the home team winning and you happy that you told your would-be homecoming date that you were sick to your stomach (which is what we did in 9th grade so we could watch Omar Vizquel touch home in that 2-1 marathon ALCS over Baltimore back in 1997).

This one will always be remembered as the young guns of the Rays outslugging the mighty Red Sox for their first ALCS win in league history. If you’re a Rays fan right now, does it honestly get any better than this? You wake up this sunday morning and you are the story in all of sports. Not just the story, but everyone’s feel good story. No different than they’ve been all year, but it seems that people are picking up that story and reading it from coast to coast right now.

The Rays get home runs from their headline players Evan Longoria and BJ Upton, as well as old man Cliff Floyd. You think when Floyd signed with Tampa he ever thought he’d hit another postseason home run? The Red Sox got 2 from Dustin Pedroia, one from Jason Bay and Kevin Youkilis each.

After all the home runs and extra base hits in this slugfest, it was Upton’s sacrifice fly in the 11th inning off Mike Timlin that brought home the victory for the Rays. A capacity crowd of 34,904 was on hand to rock that unlikely site down in Tampa as the Rays had done it. They’d really stood toe to toe all saturday night with the Boston Red Sox, and came out with a win. Suddenly it didn’t seem so far fetched anymore did it? The Rays actually are the better team of these two. The Rays should win the series, and it wouldn’t be slamming the Red Sox in any way to think that might happen. This is an outstanding and once in a lifetime team in Tampa Bay right now.

Watching the Red Sox strand 13 runners and waste four homers, Boston fans were left asking one vital question: What’s up with Josh Beckett? He was Bob Gibson in October 2007. Now he is John Wasdin in October 2008.

The Red Sox already knew they would have to defend their World Series crown without Mike Lowell. Come to find out, they’re going to have to do it without Josh Beckett, too. Or at least the Josh Beckett to which they’ve become accustomed. Because this Josh Beckett is not that Josh Beckett. Not even close.

The final vote came in, and the final vote says that a man from Tampa and a man from Milwaukee have been voted into the All-Star game over players from New York (Jason Giambi and David Wright). If you’re a Rays fan, could you be any happier? Your team is in first place and your young star (who’s locked up long term) just was selected to the All-Star Game during his rookie season. I could only wish the same thing for Jay Bruce and the Reds next season. “He earned it,” Tampa Bay manager Joe Maddon said. “He made a strong push in the last month. It’s quite a testament to him.”As for Corey Hart and the Brewers, it’s more of the same really. Brewers get C.C. Sabathia and have a new emerging core player in Hart headed to represent them in the game other than starter Ryan Braun. The Brewers are hot on the tails of the Cubbies and hold the top share in the Wildcard Race right now. They’re one of the hottest organizations in baseball. It’s good to be a Milwaukee fan. And really, this vote shows the effect of the internet age. The trend right now is these two players/teams/cities. They excite the fans of the game, thus influencing those individuals to log on and vote in abundance because they want to see them play on the grandest stage. That’s alright with us. Except we’re a little jealous for our guys. Of course we heard of that message board conspiracy theory between Rays fans and Milwaukee fans that went something like: ‘you vote for our guy, we will vote for yours’. We don’t buy it.

Tampa Bay has swept the mighty world champion Red Sox. They’re the talk of Major League Baseball, and as we saw Evan Longoria rip that big go ahead double last night into the gap at that carpet house known as Tropicana Field, we knew that they’d be the toast of baseball by this morning. And they were. We don’t necessarily think the Rays are better than the Red Sox, we’re not that naive. But we do think that they’re peaking. This is as hot as the Rays will be maybe ever. Okay, maybe not ever, but they’re 52-32 and 3 1/2 games up on the rest of the division. This is just like when those 1994 Expos (who would have lost to the ’94 Indians in the World Series anyway) ran away with things with a bunch of kids that played care-free and exciting baseball. This is that kind of team. Lets just hope these Rays win before their window closes. It will come without warning. Enjoy your place on the top of baseball’s throne, Tampa fans.